Functional Vampires
by fourleggedfish
Summary: House shows up at Wilson's door in the middle of the night. Vampire!House. I can't believe I actually wrote Vampire!House Slashy but safe for most readers.


Well...I am either deeply proud or deeply ashamed to admit that I actually wrote a vampire fic for Halloween. *face-palm* (Oh, the cliche!) I have no idea what possessed me to do it, other than everybody else seemed to be doing it and I totally love bandwagons, so, I chased it and clambered aboard, and now I'm stuck sitting on a bale of hay next to some banjo playing old fart with one tooth and a top hat who insists on telling me all about the _real _camptown races. (Don't ask.) Well, without further ramblings, here is the fic! I may or may not go on with it. Honestly, I have no idea where I would go if I did continue it. *rolls eyes at self*

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

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A random, feeble series of knocks startled Wilson from his slumber on the couch. At first, he thought that the infomercial had provided them, but a renewed flutter of weak pounds and taps drew Wilson's eyes over the back of the couch. Someone was knocking on his door? At three in the morning? Wilson could think of only one person with gall enough to interrupt him this late – or early, rather – but the noises outside his apartment sounded nothing like House. No cane raps, for one. And House pounded doors off their hinges; he didn't politely litter a few sharp taps over anyone's door.

"Great," Wilson grumbled as he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. He was tired and irritable, his practice had been pretty crappy lately, more due to patient attitude than survival curves, and House...well, House had been scarce for over a week, and it was wearing on him more than he liked to admit. And now some nosey neighbor was twiddling fingers against his door, perhaps pranks pulled by unsupervised children from across the hall, and Wilson had absolutely no patience for it at the moment. He stomped across his living room, foregoing the peephole, and wrenched the door open. "What the fuck do you want at... House?"

House drew back at the anger in Wilson's demeanor. "I didn't..." His eyes flickered over the hallway as he stumbled in a random direction to put distance between them. "You were sleeping. Sorry."

Wilson stepped out into the hall and grabbed House's sleeve before he could skitter away. His voice softer than normal in the wake of undeserved fury, Wilson assured him, "No, it's fine. I thought you were someone else." Then he noticed a lack of one important prop, and his brows furrowed. "Where's your cane?"

"I dunno," House mumbled, his voice gentler than Wilson had ever heard it, and that paradoxically raised the hairs on Wilson's arms. The tone seemed designed by nature to sooth and lull listeners into an unsuspecting stupor. "I lost it."

Wilson shook his head to rid himself of that thought, of the false sense of security, even though he felt an urge to help whether House tricked him into it with modulated phraseology or not. "What happened? You look...terrible."

A ghost of a smile fluttered over House's face. "I do try," he sighed, his tone playful, almost normal enough to put Wilson at ease. Then House blinked at him, lost but fervent, and averted his eyes. "I shouldn't have come here." He tried to twist his arm free, but Wilson was having none of that.

"Get in here." Wilson dragged House into the apartment against his mild protests, and shut the door before unhanding him. In the dim light, he couldn't see much as a doctor, but he could sense how wrong this all was just by the way House stood hunched in defeat, scared and pleading with absent eye contact. Wilson tilted his head, a frown creasing his features, then reached for the light switch.

House flinched and raised a hand to ward off the light, but it seemed an innocent enough move. He squinted out from under his fingers, eyes still downcast. Illumination lent a pale cast to his skin, and House looked drawn, as if he hadn't eaten or slept in days. His features were more haggard than usual, his clothes bedraggled and his jeans mud-stained, as if he had crashed to his hands and knees in a nice, deep, filthy puddle somewhere. Smears of mud and brackish moisture painted the floorboards and mat where House had stepped.

"Jesus," Wilson breathed. "House, what the hell happened?"

"I didn't know where else to go," House confessed, his voice small and shaky. "Please, can I stay?"

The plea left Wilson both puzzled and alarmed; House didn't ask for things; he took. And he sure as hell didn't use the P word. Wilson moved in, ignoring how violently House shied from him. He didn't limp, though, or at least not much. Wilson verified that by glancing down; House wasn't favoring his left side at all in his stance. All Wilson could think of was the methadone House had nearly died on, and he panicked on the inside. "Did you take something? I won't even get mad this time, but – " Wilson paused, confused, watching House pant lightly as if winded, his lips parted just a fraction. "What the..." Before House could react, Wilson seized his head in both hands and forced his head up to let the light fall more fully on his face. "Oh my god." Wilson shifted one hand to thumb House's upper lip out of the way. "House...talk to me."

Around Wilson's finger, House choked a truly dejected apology, which only served to draw more attention to the freakish length of canine that Wilson had exposed. "I thought it'd be okay, but it's not, and I'm...god, Wilson, I'm so _hungry_..." House trailed off with an anguished whimper. "I can't do this. I thought I could, but...Wilson..."

Wilson unhanded him and stepped back, feeling at once terrified and stupidly childish. For one thing, this couldn't be what it appeared; House had to be playing a trick on him, a clever and elaborate hoax. Plus, if this truly were...if it were actually what it looked like, then it made no sense for House to quiver in his foyer on the verge of a breakdown. If this were for real, there should be blood spatters and screaming, and Wilson should be running or begging, or beating him off with a rolling pin and a medical dictionary. Instead, Wilson had what appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly harmless, docile, frightened and starving vampire in his apartment. Wilson stood there, awaiting either maniacal laughter and a cell phone camera to capture Wilson acting the perfect mark, or...fangs and pierced flesh and screams.

When neither came, Wilson shuffled forward again, wary but unafraid. Bram Stoker was fiction, after all. Hesitant to sound a fool, Wilson nonetheless asked, "If you're hungry, then why haven't you...um...fed?" Geez, did that ever sound corny. What was this, a teen choice awards film?

"I tried," House whispered to the floor, folded in on himself in shame as he was. "I thought it would be easy, but I can't just... I'm a doctor. I'm a total selfish bastard, but I can't just kill people. I couldn't make myself do it." He glanced at Wilson, stole a still frame of his profile to hoard as if he might be forced to give it back. "It was an accident. I didn't even realize... I was drunk, and I left some bar, and I went into the alley to...you know...got kicked out and I had to pee, so... Some guy jumped me. I was just trying to get him off, but I was drunk, and he had his arm around my throat, and I bit him cuz I couldn't think what else to do to get him off me – "

"It's alright," Wilson cut in just to put an end to the horrible edge of despair in House's voice. It was like he didn't think Wilson would understand that it wasn't his fault – that he hadn't gone after some hare-brained, self-destructive cure for his leg – but he had to try to explain it anyway because there was no one else for House to go to.

House stole another covert glance, wary and mistrustful. The look turned to disappointment and House averted his eyes more slowly this time, breathing over a subtle hiccup. He could evidently see something in Wilson's face that Wilson hadn't meant to expose there, perhaps some brand of contempt or disgust. "Right," House mumbled, his entire bearing a study in self-loathing.

Wilson reached a tentative hand out to cup House's face, and House turned into the warmth with a sigh, nuzzling Wilson's palm as his eyes slid shut, a condemned man accepting one last random act of kindness before he stepped to the gallows. House looked so nakedly human, so raw that Wilson could hardly believe that this was House at all. For lack of any more suitable answer, Wilson remarked, "You're freezing."

House nodded with his nose pressed to Wilson's palm. For a moment, Wilson wondered if House were sniffing him, catching a whiff while playing with his food, but that wasn't it at all. House was just looking for comfort, which he never normally would have been caught dead doing. Speaking of... Wilson shifted two fingers and located a perfectly normal pulse in House's carotid. Okay...weird. This whole scene felt strange and endearing and terrifying all at once, and it made Wilson want to cuddle him for the first time ever. The moment snapped in two when House breathed in, his mouth opening just enough that Wilson felt a soft tickle of sharp fangs dragging across his skin. The act didn't mean anything; he had probably intended to speak, but when he noticed the proximity of teeth to flesh, House jerked back against the door, warding Wilson off with upraised palms as if he expected Wilson to strike him. "Sorry!"

An urge to recoil passed unexpressed through Wilson's body. "It's okay," he offered gently. "You're hungry." He didn't honestly think that House would hurt him, and whatever form his appetite took, it resembled nothing of horror stories and folklore about bloodlust and rampages. House as a hungry vampire appeared just as meek as a starving kitten, and considerably less apt to claw well-meaning strangers' eyes out. Hunger for him was just that – a gnawing belly and weakened limbs. Interestingly enough, that decided Wilson. "You need to eat something before you pass out."

House's gaze flew up to meet Wilson's, eyes two dilated pits of black ringed in blue corona's. "What? No! Wilson, no. You don't understand."

"Actually," Wilson murmured, "I think I do." House hadn't come here to tap his ever present meal ticket, to take his culinary usury to a whole new level. He had come here to find a friend willing to give him mercy. He had already told Wilson that he couldn't live like this, though not in as many words.

"Wilson – "

"It's okay, House." Wilson took a confident step toward him, dismayed to witness House shrink into the corner behind the door, eyes darting about in search of a weapon or an escape route.

House eyed the philodendron next to him, but throwing a potted plant at his chronically helpful best friend must have seemed too ludicrous. Instead, his gaze tripped back to Wilson, open and far too bright, forbidding only because House knew him well enough to have guessed at what Wilson intended by coming nearer. "Don't," House hissed, a bare shudder of a word, his lip curling in an empty threat. The warning tone made House appear as dangerous as his folklore counterparts sounded in literature, but only in passing; it was an obvious front.

Undeterred, Wilson said, "Look, I get it. But you shouldn't give up yet. We can make this work, okay?"

House tucked himself against the wall and put his back to Wilson. "Don't be an idiot! You can't care me better, Wilson. I'm a fucking parasite."

"I would have gone with leech, myself."

House gawped over his shoulder, incredulous. Apparently, he had not expected Wilson to start cracking jokes at his expense, not over such a horrible absurdity.

That merely served to highlight how shaken House must have been, and Wilson's resolve hardened. "We can get food for you," he insisted, his mind racing despite the ridiculous nature of this situation. "There's a kosher butcher down in Trenton; we can claim we're making authentic blood pies, or running experiments for the medical school – whatever. But we can put our hands on a steady supply for you, House."

A sharp, mean bark of laughter echoed in the entryway. "Wilson the enabler," House snarled, but his contempt didn't seem directed at Wilson, not entirely. "Still so fucking eager to feed my habit."

"Yeah," Wilson agreed with a mirthless brand of humor. He grasped House's shoulder, but House curled into the corner, forcing Wilson to manhandle him back. At that, House finally grew violent, but not in a menacing way. He shoved at Wilson and tried to throw him off, then nearly got the door open to run out. Wilson shouldered it closed, peripherally wondering if superhuman strength were yet another myth dreamed up by bored horror novelists and tale-spinners around ancient campfires. House was no more formidable than he had ever been, even less so since hunger had reduced him to a shivering mass of weakened muscles. Wilson had no trouble shoving him to the floor and subduing him, one arm latched around House's midsection to hold him in place. And then Wilson proved how insane he was by practically shoving his forearm into House's mouth.

House convulsed in shock, emitted a sharp and panicked bleat around Wilson's flesh, but his jaw locked down of its own accord in such a way that Wilson suspected in was an involuntary reflex. He felt teeth pierce his skin and his adrenaline skyrocketed along with his heartbeat. It felt…different. Wilson might be tempted to describe the sensation as euphoric, if his arm were capable of experiencing bliss without bothering with the rest of him. Warmth encompassed his arm, spreading in a nimbus to his shoulder but no farther, then down to the pads of his fingers, until he would have sworn that his hands could have seared prints into the hardwood flooring. The whole thing was unusual and intoxicating, but in a detached and clinical sort of way; Wilson observed himself and his body's reaction like a man apart from the fact that his best friend was sucking blood from his arm like a baby colt to its mother's teat. A gentle tug on some ephemeral part of Wilson's insides was the only actual physical sensation that he registered; it took him several seconds to identify it as the drain on his circulatory system, and then his fingers began to tingle at the depletion of their blood supply.

The whole time, House scrabbled to claw Wilson's arm off, but he had no leverage like this, locked back against Wilson's chest, his head trapped between Wilson's right shoulder and left forearm; he had no choice but to swallow the blood that spilled into his mouth, lest he choke on it. Luckily, the suckling seemed beyond his conscious control as well; even as he thrashed weakly to get free, whimpering and gouging welted tracts into Wilson's flesh, he sucked greedily at Wilson's opened vein.

The tears took Wilson by surprise. When House realized he couldn't get Wilson off of him, his eyes began to gently water before he heaved a wet sob out through his nose, spraying a light mist of Wilson's blood out across his fingers where he clutched Wilson's arm, still trying in vain to tug him off. As soon as he realized he was crying, House squeezed his eyes shut, panting desperate, nasally breaths even as his sinuses clogged and made it harder to draw oxygen. He twisted toward the floor in a last ditch effort to escape under Wilson's arm, but Wilson moved with him and tightened his grip, holding him fast, forcing him to keep drinking. House affected a snarl just to give himself room to breathe through his mouth, cold air rushing through the miniscule space between his lips and Wilson's skin.

The whole affair was messy and quite frankly disgusting. Wilson guessed at the rate of blood flow based on how often House swallowed, then gently pulled his arm free when he figured he had given two pints. House practically spit him out as soon as Wilson's hold loosened, then threw him off and scrabbled away to find shelter under the table where the philodendron basked in silent, oblivious repose. He scrubbed the remnants of Wilson from his lips and face, and then appeared to gag when he tried to do the same to his teeth and tongue. After attempting a second time to scrub the bloodstains off his teeth, House nearly bit off his own finger when he hooked it behind a fang. So the lockjaw thing was an involuntary reflex after all. House finally left off, glaring murderously at Wilson, and proceeded to lick his lips like a normal person to clean everything off, his legs bent, knees tucked up under his chin like a wound-up, six-foot-two jack-in-the-box waiting to spring a coronary on some innocent little old lady.

Wilson scooted back to sit leaning against the wall at what he deemed a safe distance from the pissed off vampire he had just force-fed. Then he grimaced at the combination of drool and blood smeared all over his arm, his shirtsleeves, the front of House's rumpled oxford… "We need to find a neater way to do this," Wilson remarked, clamping his right hand over the seeping puncture marks on his left forearm. He knew that they went about a quarter-inch deep, but the blood was already clotting well. As a doctor, he wondered if something in House's saliva acted as a coagulating agent.

The whole idea fascinated him all of a sudden. What exactly might the science be behind the existence of vampires? A disease? A symbiotic parasite? Wilson did not, for one second, credit supernatural forces; he was more like House in those matters than he would ever care to admit, which he supposed made him a closet hypocrite of sorts, considering how he so often berated House for his open, staunch atheism.

Wilson raised his eyebrows at the huddled form of his furious best friend. House continued to needle him with his gaze, radiating that keep-away aura he always bristled with after someone foisted their help on him, but he looked better, flushed though still pale. Even in stillness, he seemed more animated now – more like himself, Wilson thought. Just to lessen the tension, Wilson tried on a lopsided smile, one of those cute little boyish ones that sent women into hormone-induced swoons. House narrowed his eyes at that look, so Wilson peered up at him from under lowered brows and grinned. "And you call _me_ the functional vampire."

House blinked and tilted his head, curiosity overtaking his anger. Finally, the tension broke as House let a tiny smile grab at one corner of his mouth. He shot Wilson a coy sort of look and declared, "Well, one of us has to be functional."

Wilson merely snorted in response. They would be okay. Even like this, they would be okay. He broke eye contact and once again took in the bloodstains, House's muddy footprints and the general chaos of the entryway. "You're cleaning up this mess."

"Like hell," House scoffed.

* * *


End file.
